8 Birds of Colorado 



floating in about eighteen inches of water, and placed in a 

 thick reed-bed ; they are built up of broken reeds and 

 other debris and fastened round the gro^\dng reeds, but 

 the whole structure is hardly high enough to keep the 

 eggs dry. These, according to Henshaw, were three in 

 number, though Smith (90) found four to be more usual. 

 They are white in colour and sometimes roughened 

 ■uith a chalky deposit, but generally stamed and soiled ; 

 they measure 1-75 x r25. 



When the bird leaves the nest it invariably, if time 

 allows, covers up the eggs with grass or other vegetable 

 matter, in order to conceal them ; and as they both leave 

 and return to their nests by diving quietly, Henshaw 

 believed that the eggs were partially, at any rate, hatched 

 by the heat of the decaying vegetable matter with 

 which he found them covered, but it is now generally 

 agreed that this is done only for concealment. 



Henshaw was at San Luis Lakes on June 23rd, and 

 Aiken found fresh eggs at the same place in July, while 

 Dille gives June 19th as an average date for fresh eggs. 

 Rockwell has recently published an illustrated account 

 of its nesting habits at Barr, near Denver. 



Genus PODILYMBUS. 



Bill very short, deep and strongly compressed ; no crest or ruff, 

 but the frontal feathers rather stif? and bristle-like ; tarsus about three- 

 fourths the length of the middle toe and claw, and nearly twice the 

 culmen. 



Only one species found tliroughout most of America. 



Pied-billed Grebe. Podilymlms podiceps. 



A.O.U. Checklist no 6 — Colorado Records — Ridgway 79, p. 234; 

 Morrison 89, p. 147 ; W. G. Smith 89, p. 138 ; Osburn 90, p. 68 ; Cooke 

 97, pp. 18, 50, 191 ; Henderson 03, p. 107 ; 09, p. 224 ; Rockwell 10, p. 188 



